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Jakarta Post

City could use 2014 budget amount

Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama will use the revised 2014 City Budget should his administration and the City Council fail to reach an agreement regarding the 2015 City Budget

Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, March 7, 2015

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City could use 2014 budget amount

J

akarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama will use the revised 2014 City Budget should his administration and the City Council fail to reach an agreement regarding the 2015 City Budget.

Ahok stated he was prepared to continue using last year'€™s budget amount, but for different programs until the end of his term in 2017 if no end was brought to the dispute.

'€œI will do the same thing until my term ends in 2017,'€ Ahok said at City Hall on Friday, adding that he planned to run for governor in the 2017 election.

In the wake of a failed mediation attempt on Thursday, the Home Ministry said it would continue evaluating the draft of the 2015 budget sent by the city administration.

Once the ministry has evaluated the document, it must be discussed by the administration and the city council within seven days before being returned to the ministry for approval.

If the discussion reaches another deadlock, Jakarta'€™s 2015 budget will be limited to the amount specified in the previous budget year, according to Law No. 23/2014 on regional administration.

The 2015 budget was set at Rp 73.08 trillion (US$5.62 billion), while the revised 2014 budget was set slightly lower at Rp 72.9 trillion.

Ahok said the evaluated document from the Home Ministry was expected to be handed to the city on March 13.

'€œI hope the City Council will monitor our administration closely; we have no hidden interests,'€ he said.

Ahok went on to say that in previous years, the councilors had paid scant attention to budget usage, revealing that councilors had rarely even criticized unfinished school-renovation projects or river-normalization schemes.

The spat between the governor and the City Council began when the councilors claimed that Ahok had submitted an illegal draft budget to the Home Ministry. The councilors later submitted their own version of the draft budget and exercised their right of inquiry against Ahok.

The governor fought back by disclosing both versions of the draft budget to the public via the official city website and his private website, insisting that the councilors made the changes to the draft budget alone and manually after a council plenary session approved the draft on Jan. 27.

He alleged that the councilors had resorted to the manual method because the budget was in an electronic format only accessible by a handful of high officials.

Home Ministry spokesman Dodi Riatmadji said that according to Home Ministry Regulation No. 13/2006 on the guidance of regional financial management, if both parties cannot reach an agreement regarding the city budget, the governor must issue a gubernatorial regulation (pergub) to legalize the use of the previous budget. In normal circumstances, a city budget is in the form of a bylaw.

'€œThe gubernatorial regulation, approved by the Home Ministry, will become the legal basis in using the city budget,'€ he explained.

Dodi added that the city administration could determine allocations and programs without consulting the council. '€œThey can arrange the allocation alone,'€ he said.

The Home Ministry hoped the budget could be disbursed in April, he said.

Meanwhile, public policy expert Agus Pambagio said that the rift would disadvantage Jakarta residents. '€œIf this happens in every budget-discussion period, our development will be halted,'€ he warned.

Agus said he doubted important issues like transportation and floods could be handled if the executive and legislative bodies were busy quarreling.

He also urged the Home Ministry to take an active role in bridging the rift.

'€œThe ministry should have determined which budget was illicit and approve the other one,'€ he said, adding that the false draft should be handed over to law-enforcement agencies for further investigation.

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